Ottawa to spend $15-billion to boost military

Major purchases of planes, helicopters, ships, trucks to be announced next week

The Conservatives will unveil a massive $15-billion procurement package at four separate announcements in four Canadian cities next week, sources told The Globe and Mail.

. . . But Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Parliament yesterday that he is following through on a campaign promise to "correct 13 years of Liberal neglect —

Finally, someone who is willing to make a decision. This is great news for our soldiers and our country. Without a strong and functioning military Canada's role in the world is significantly reduced. Whether the mission is war, 'peacekeeping', enforcing Canadian sovereignity or disaster relief this equipment is essential.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

But . . .

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, [Senator] Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Passing this off as 'WMD found in Iraq' is just silly. So what's with the press conference? I think this is just crudely played politics on the Senators' part.

Besides, EVERYONE knows that Saddam's WMD were spirited over the Syrian border in the weeks before the Coalition invasion.

. . . North Korea has poured liquid fuel into the missile propellant built in the missile launching pad. It is at the finishing stage before launching" but the South Korean government did not know if fueling was completed, he said.

Experts say if the missile is not launched 48 hours after fueling, the fuel will start to break down and damage the missile.

Well, it looks like we'll know within two days. I don't know very much about US ship-based missile defence capatibilites, but it would be great if they could shoot this one out of the sky.